Down the hall, in the hours before the Spurs would dust off Orlando 122-111 in what could have been Dwight Howard's last game with the Magic, a bigger circus was brewing.

With the trade deadline less than 24 hours away, Howard had committed to the Magic for another season, vowing not to exercise his early-termination option and explore free agency in July.

Or else he had made no such promise, in which case the Orlando brass was in the unenviable position of needing to trade the centerpiece of an Eastern Conference contender, or risk losing him in the summer for nothing.

“It's got to be (distracting),” said Spurs point guard Tony Parker, who had 31 points. “I'm not in their locker room, but I'm sure when the deadline passes, it's going to be a lot better for them. They can focus.”

The Spurs arrived at the AT&T Center amid no such distractions. The only nebulous rumor involved Green, a third-year guard who according to a loose Internet report had been included in talks with Utah and Minnesota that might bring Josh Howard to town.

Once on the floor, the Spurs (28-13) showed why they are in no hurry to break up a team that has raced to second place in the Western Conference.

Parker had his seventh game of 30-plus points, and 12 assists, and left the floor to “M-V-P” chants.

Flattered, Parker called the serenade misdirected.

“That's LeBron and Durant stuff,” he said.

Tim Duncan added 21 points and 13 rebounds, as the Spurs won their first game against an opponent over .500 since the last game of the rodeo trip, Feb. 23 at Denver.

Manu Ginobili, recovered from hip flexor tightness that kept him out of the second half Monday against Washington, came off the bench for 14 points and four 3-pointers.

If Wednesday was Howard's swan song with the 28-16 Magic, it was a solid sendoff: 22 points, 12 rebounds, three blocks, plus a 4-of-10 free-throw effort.

His line looked similar to that of Duncan, nine years his elder.

“I just tried to hold my own,” said Duncan, who got tag-team help defending Howard from Tiago Splitter. “I thought we all did a good job against him. We had a lot of shifts, a lot of different guys in there with hands trying to make his life as difficult as possible.”

It could be argued Howard is doing a good enough job of that on his own, turning every Orlando travel stop into the what-will-Dwight-do Tour.

After the game, a brusque Howard broke his silence, with a quizzical message aimed at the Orlando front office.

“They took a chance on me when I was 18,” Howard said. “I gave them everything for eight years. Take a chance again.”

Of course, the risk is all the Magic's. They could come up snake eyes and lose Howard for nothing. No matter.